5 times Jacob didn't put the pieces together and 1 time he did
by bluemimosa
Summary: The coincidences keep piling up.


**This is a sequel to We Used to Be Friends but will probably still make sense if you haven't read it.**

* * *

1.

"Mushroom melt is ready." Jacob said putting serving dish on the counter. Only Texas scooped some out on his plate. The other boys hung back. Cleary the over-processed protein cubes in Deluxe had ruined their taste buds. "C'mon you need to get your Vitamin D somehow. See Texas likes it."

"Yeah, but Texas will eat anything," Dutch said. "On Halloween he gorged himself on candy and then tried to eat a jack o' lantern."

"It looked like it was made out of mellowcreme." Texas said with his mouth full.

Mike looked up as the gates opened to let in a car. "Julie must be back from her intern shift a little early today." Soon the girl herself appeared.

Jacob sighed. They didn't used to have interns in the executive office. He glanced over at Mike, of course they didn't used to have child soldiers either. Once teenagers used to get to go to college or explore their options not just go right into the company as cheap labor. Things had changed since his day and not for the better.

"I've got some bad news." Julie said. She brought up a picture of a comp screen display showing a tech schematic. "Kane had it up in his office, so it will probably be going into production soon if it isn't already."

Chuck squinted at the picture "A Mega-Ultra- bot? As if they weren't big enough already!"

Texas was the only one who didn't look discouraged. "You know what they say: the bigger they are the harder you punch 'em!"

"How'd you get into Kane's office?" Jacob asked. It wasn't like his paranoid former partner to just leave the door unlocked.

She grinned impishly "That's the good news. Kane's got this new assistant, Tooley, and I talked him into letting me in. Seriously, I think Texas could outsmart him."

Texas beamed "Well, duh! That's because Texas is awesome."

* * *

2.

Dutch wasn't sure why he hadn't just put the injured minigrunt out of its misery. He'd shot more than enough them out of the sky himself. But when he found the little bot tangled up in the power cable he had a fleeting moment of compassion. It was a pitiful sight. Mutant rats had already pulled off its blaster arms and it sounded like it was whimpering in pain. Maybe it didn't even want to be an attack bot. So he made sure it was securely chained up and brought it back to the lab. Jacob might be able to reprogram it. Bots did all sorts of things in Deluxe.

Jacob thought he might have something on the original grunt bots in his files. He led the way into a storeroom full of filing cabinets and crates of blueprints with papers scattered haphazardly on every flat surface. Dutch wondered if this is what Jacob's office had looked like back when he worked at KaneCo. It was strange to think of Jacob up in Deluxe. It seemed like the old man had grown in Motorcity like one of his odd mushrooms.

Jacob set a crate on the table and knocked off a stack of photographs to the floor in the process. He stooped to gather them up. "The early days in R&D. We were all so young then."

"I'll say" Dutch commented picking up a photo of a baby and showed it to the old man. "You didn't experiment on kids did you?"

"What? Of course not. That was my goddaughter. In the hospital." Jacob put the photo on the top of the new stack. "I haven't thought about her in years. She would have been around your age."

"You still got people in Deluxe?" Dutch didn't know why he was prying. He certainly didn't want to talk about his family. Except maybe he kinda did.

But Jacob just shook his head and said "No, not anymore." That didn't really leave any opening for conversation. The old man pulled out a blueprint and began unrolling it.

Dutch went through his own crate but his thoughts had shifted from KaneCo's ancient history to more recent, more personal events. He remembered how his little brother once painted an old box green, called it a Dar-bot and tried to get it clean their room. Even when that didn't work it was weeks before he'd let their parents throw the box away. Dar would have jumped at the chance to try and fix a bot. Dutch wondered what he was doing now.

"Found it!" Jacob exclaimed pointing to a spot the plan for minigrunts. "It's the same base model as the old cleanerbots, shouldn't be too hard to override the obedience program."

This might actually work. Now all Dutch needed to do was figure out what they could do with a bot.

* * *

3.

Jacob was starting to worry about Hudson. It had been over two weeks since the scientist had come to Motorcity and while he seemed perfectly happy with his new lab he had yet to set foot outside it. Hudson had gratefully accepted Jacobs offer of fresh vegetables but turned down his invitation to visit the farmer's market, or the thrift store or even the greenhouse.

Jacob was at the new lab again as they went over the records Hudson had managed to take with him from KaneCo. Unfortunately they were mostly related to the powercore. Hudson apologized. "I'm sorry I can't be more help. I mostly worked on my own projects and you saw how that turned out. I have no clue what Kane might do next. It's not like he consulted me or took my advice. I barely saw him at work."

"Things sure are different from when we used to all hit the bar at the end of a long day, huh?" Jacob said. He missed the old drink and think sessions they used to have when the company was starting out.

"That hasn't happened in long time." Hudson said. "In fact after you left Kane gave up all pretenses of being social with the staff. Maybe losing his wife the way he did made him paranoid. He got very secretive about his personal life. " He took a deep breath and continued. "After the energy source experimenting picked up he decided I didn't need to have a personal life at all. Until my rescue I literally hadn't left the office in three years."

Jacob winced. Hudson's new reclusive tendencies were starting to make more sense.

Hudson looked out of the entrance of his lab. " I'll get out there eventually, but it may take me awhile."

* * *

4.

Sasquatch's front driver's side tire had developed a slow leak. Jacob was trying to figure out where. He would much prefer to patch the tire than to have to dig up a replacement somewhere. These weren't standard size after all. He'd gotten the tire off the truck and overinflated it when Julie walked over.

"Need any help?" she asked.

"Yes," he said and started to pour water over the tire. "You've got young eyes; tell me if you see any bubbles."

She nodded. Nothing so far. He moved over and tried again. "How's KaneCo these days?"

"The usual. The interns are getting a tour of the transportation department next week. Any potential superweapons I should be looking out for?"

He shrugged. "No idea. I never had that much to do transportation. Juan and Rachel set that department up."

"Rachel Kane?" Julie asked carefully keeping her eye fixed on the tire.

"Yes, how do you know about her?"

"She's mentioned in Kane's biography, but only for a couple of lines."

"Abraham published a biography? Just when I thought his ego couldn't get any bigger."

Julie rolled her eyes in response. "What was she like?"

"You mean what kind of woman would marry Kane?"

"Something like that."

Jacob thought for a moment "Well, you gotta remember he didn't start off that bad. Rachel was actually a kind girl. Smart too. She got hired at the company by developing a process that made antigrav plates affordable to mass produce. Rachel's goal was always to take pie in the sky technology and make it into something that could benefit ordinary people."

At this point he noticed the water bubbling in one of the tire grooves "Ah ha! Gotcha!" he circled the spot. Jacob straightened up. "You know, you remind me of her sometimes."

Julie froze and stared at him wide-eyed.

He chuckled "Relax, I meant that you have a good heart not that I think you're likely to fall for a megalomaniac."

She still seemed flustered "I'm, uh, I'm going to go see what the guys are up to." She said and quickly walked away.

Jacob shook his head as he watched her go. Some people just didn't know how to take a compliment.

* * *

5.

Chuck had no idea how to impress Claire. He'd even asked Julie for advice. She'd told him to skip trying impress Claire and just try talking to her like a normal person. It seemed simple enough but whenever he saw Claire he either got tongue tied or babbled and he wasn't sure which was worse. That night the girls were over and he hung around the counter watching Claire and trying desperately to think of something normal to say. No, more than normal, something witty, something suave, something totally cool.

At the moment Claire was talking to Jacob. "Julie's birthday is on Thursday so I'm taking her shopping and after that I was thinking I could bring her down here for cake or something. If there's one thing that you do better in Motorcity it's food."

Chuck hoped Jacob wouldn't suggest those disgusting, addictive muffins but the old man just blinked and said "Next Thursday. The seventh."

"Yeah, do you already have something planned that night?"

Jacob rubbed his chin. "No, I just used to know someone with the same birthday that's all. What are the odds?"

Finally Chuck had a way to naturally join the conversation. "Pretty good actually. If you have a group of 23 people there's a 50% chance that two of them have the same birthday."

Both Jacob and Claire starred at him. Maybe it hadn't been so natural.

Claire was the first one to respond. "Wait a minute that can't be true. There are 365 days in a year so wouldn't you need at least 183?"

"Well you would if you wanted to find someone who had your exact birthday but you aren't just comparing the people to you; you're also comparing them to every other person in the group. So person 3 might not have the same birthday as person 1 but they could still have the same birthday as person 18."

"Huh, That actually makes sense." She said.

Chuck felt like he'd stumbled into an alternate dimension. He was talking about math with a pretty girl and she was listening and interested. "So as long as Jacob knows at least 23 people the odds are pretty good two of them have the same birthday." He continued. Chuck and Claire both looked at Jacob speculatively.

"Gah! Of course I know more than 23 people!" Jacob said. "You should definitely come down that night. I'll get the boys to decorate and I have this mung bean cupcake recipe I've been dying to try"

Claire shuddered but tried to be polite. "I was thinking more something from a bakery. Or maybe a patisserie. Do you have one of those in Motorcity?"

"Nonsense." Jacob insisted. "Homemade is much healthier, and since Chuck is such a big fan of my celebratory muffins he can help me taste test."

Suddenly Chuck regretted becoming a part of the conversation.

* * *

+ 1

It had been a week since the Genesis pod attack and Jacob was still trying to piece together exactly what had happened. "Chuck told us Julie got you out of prison and you were going to try and take out the controls in Kane's warpod. Then the next thing he heard from either of you was Julie calling from 9lives to tell us the warpod was down. How did you even catch up to it?"

Mike shrugged. "I called Kane and told him I'd taken Julie hostage and would only turn her over if he shut off the genesis pod."

"And that worked?" Jacob asked. It certainly didn't sound like something Kane would do.

"Almost. It got him to stop the warpod and meet us to do a swap. We'd decided it would be best if Julie turned the genesis pod off so we could be sure it wasn't just some sort of trick."

"And then what?" Jacob prodded.

"And then Kane called my bluff. That would have been the end of it but Julie . . ." Mike paused, agitated and ran his fingers through his hair. "She was already near the edge so she bumped into me and made it look like I'd pushed her. I barely caught her in time. I don't know what she thinking."

"What because reckless stupidity is your job?" Jacob responded sarcastically.

"At least I'm not stupid enough to bet my life that Kane still has a shred of human kindness!" Mike shot back. "But it worked." He continued more slowly. "Maybe it worked a little too well. He was more concerned with getting her to safety than he was with recapturing me." He shook his head ruefully. "Either that or he knew I'd be _reckless_ enough to try and charge him. He's been pretty good at predicting what I'd do this whole mission. Up until the end at least."

Mike finished relating his next two brushes with death and caught up to when he'd reunited with the rest of the Burners. Jacob found himself wishing he'd never asked. He tried to tell himself that he didn't ask the kids to take any risks he wouldn't take. But he had to admit even in his wildest days he'd never had Mike's knack for finding danger. It was quite a risk Julie had taken as well. Mike was right; he wouldn't count on Abraham's concern for anybody. Not anymore.

Jacob returned to the kitchen and checked a stock pot that he had soaking in the sink. The burned on bits didn't seem to have come unstuck overnight. He sighed and poured it out. Still if Abraham did have a soft spot for any of his employees it made sense it would be for Julie. She was the same age his daughter would have been. She even looked a little like his wife had, with those big sad eyes. However Rachel's hair was so dark brown it was almost black and Julie's had a lot of red . . . in . . . it.

He blinked and shook his head. Of course that was ridiculous. Red hair wasn't that uncommon. Besides he'd looked for baby girl Kane back when he could still hack in the Deluxe archive and he hadn't found anything. He turned on the water and prepared to focus on practical things.

He was attacking the burned on food with steel wool and elbow grease when another thought popped up. He should have found _something _on the little girl. Even if she'd never left the hospital. There was no record of a life but there was no record of a death either. It was as if all traces of her existence had been erased.

The pot slipped from his hands as the pieces finally clicked into place. _Abraham hadn't lost his daughter; he'd hidden her._

The loud clang of the metal pot on the metal sink brought Roth over. The bot buzzed around concerned until Jacob told him he was fine and waved him away. He found himself grinning. The baby had lived. She gotten a name and grown up. Something from that tragic time had turned out alright. In fact she'd turned out better than he would have thought possible considering the circumstances.

If Julie was Kane's daughter that explained why he'd been so willing to bargain. It explained a lot of things actually. But she wasn't just his daughter. Julie was very much her own person, and she had proved she was capable of making up her own mind about things. Even if it meant going against her father.

He would bet that was something Abraham hadn't predicted.

* * *

**Jacob comes across as kind of dense in this fic (and he was even worse in the first draft). I wonder whether he was really this dense on the show or if he knew about Julie but also knew how to keep a secret. One more question left unanswered by the cancellation.**


End file.
